Rural Life

Longer days

Last night here in the Northern Hemisphere, and more particularly Europe, the clocks sprang forward an hour.  We lag behind the Americans I think on this, as they went earlier in the month and for the past three weeks I have missed Martha Quinn in San Francisco and her afternoon show that ends at 3pm, or midnight in our terms.  It'll be good to hear her dulcet tones again from tomorrow!  

Normally there are lots of stories on TV news about how changing the hour affects your health and how it will kill you in the long term.  Although as someone who used to commute to the UK regularly and therefore went through the change of hour twice every trip, I think that is something suitable for feeding growing vegetables.  What about those countries with multiple time zones - do their citizens die because they have to travel east to west and back again?  Much more interestingly, we discussed the issue of summer time at the weekly flower making session on Tuesday.

I have to say that normally, what is discussed in flower making, stays in flower making, but this was an interesting perspective.  Here in western France, in the height of summer, it doesn't get dark until 11pm, but it doesn't really get light much before 6am.  The view among the group was that actually lighter mornings are preferable as there is so much to do and some are up at 5:30am so a bit more light then would be nice.  Who, they asked rhetorically, wants to be up and outside doing stuff every evening until 11pm?  This is a fair point.  Getting children to bed when it is light is always a challenge (from my memories of being a child and difficult to get to bed when it was light), but they are still in school in June when we have the longest evenings and part of July too.  It's great for holiday makers, but for this group of pensioners, it was a doubtful blessing.

Just to explain what you can see on the table there - I was cutting out circles of paper the size of a CD.  You then take three circles, put a small button of some sort in the middle and secure it with an elastic band, then open up the resulting "flower".  We will be making some 4,000 paper flowers, if not a few more, for the village float for the Comice in August.  If you don't know what a Comice is by now, look through past blogs for August!!

On Tuesday, we went on one of our very rare visits to Angers to do a bit of business.  Last time we went in was November last year, to get a train, driving in from a different direction.  I'd not gone my old favourite route for a couple of years.  The second tram line has changed the road system a lot, and accessing the familiar car park was a bit more of a challenge.  John was convinced we were going to get mown down by a tram.  We also could not find the entrance to the ground level car park so had to go underground.  As we weren't there for long, less than an hour, it was free though, so one good thing!  When we got above ground, we admired the law courts - Justice at it's most impressive!

Weather-wise it has been a weird week, with one day fine and warm, the next moist and dull (see above), but next week promises to be fine and dry and warm - we'll see if that is the case.  The spring flowers are coming on most prettily.

It also means that I no longer have any good excuses for not planting the rest of the potatoes and even more onions, while waiting for seeds to germinate so I can plant them out and start the next batch.  After last year's dismal failure at getting anything very much to grow in the vegetable garden, we have invested in over a tonne of high quality organic matter to feed the soil and break up the clay soil.  Let's hope it works!

Another labour of love has been weeding and feeding the asparagus bed - frustratingly, we won't be able to eat any from here this year as the corms are yet to really settle in, but next year, it could be different!

It is therefore time for me to publish this and go and prepare myself mentally and physically for a week's hard graft in the gardens.  Besides, it is taking ages to load each of these photos - too many kiddies playing computer games and taking up band width I suspect!

Have a good week!

 

Spring, birds and horses

It's now officially spring!  Days are longer than nights, the weather is capricious and mostly warmer, and birds are singing.

The bird song is now getting pretty intense.  The all year round residents of the land in the Country (Garden, Orchard and Meadow) are getting pretty frisky and pairing up or even sorting out nests.  All year round we have a loud chorus of chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, robins, blackbirds and carrion crows.  During the winter, the woodpeckers (greater spotted and green in the main), dunnocks and long tailed tits are also very audible, with a core of about 10 species all year round.  We get a few interesting things passing through such as hawfinch and redwing as well.

Now the first of the summer visitors are coming back, with chiffchaffs, blackcaps and Cetti's warblers making a real racket, drowning out my beloved skylarks much of the time.  It is still too early for my summer favourites - nightingales, melodious warblers (even the name is fabulous) and golden orioles, but by the end of April they may be here.  I am astounded at the variety of birds we get, few of which are in the "concerns" categories of endangered species, but the sheer variety must mean something good.  Most months we have at least 30 to 35 species spotted using the Merlin birdsong analysis app - I have to stress that visual sightings are generally pretty limited, due to the quality and quantity of hiding places!

We spent Saturday in a very different way to normal, with a day at the races, courtesy of my brother who part owns a couple of horses and one was racing at Angers hippodrome yesterday.  I have been to the races at Worcester as a guest of an owner, and the dress code was formal, so heels, frock, posh jacket, a bit of bling and lippy.  No such codes were applied at Angers - clean, comfortable and suitable for the weather was the order of the day, even in the panoramic restaurant, where we had lunch with the trainer.

Even in the stable area, where we went to see the boy being walked around to warm him up, everything was very informal and open.

We were allowed in the parade ring, which I didn't photograph as we were listening to the discussion between trainer and jockey and then working out whether to bet (we didn't) and where best to watch the race.  We found a very good spot, on the advice of the trainer, right by the finish line and quite well sheltered from the typically moist and dank weather, that has plagued us these last 6 months.  I was well placed to see them jump the water fence.

For the bits of the race that weren't close by, we were also well placed to watch the big screen with the action from cameras around the course, and naturally there was the usual, unintelligible commentary over the loudspeakers.

Given the excellent position, I was able to capture him going over the finish line (navy blue shirt with a yellow V), not first, but not last and he made it all the way round, which 3 of his competitors didn't.

We then spent a lot of time with him, both in the ring and at the stables, as he cooled off after his exertions over 3,700 metres and a bunch of fences (I didn't count how many).  The initiated and eagle eyed will spot that he is missing a shoe, which he shed somewhere down the back straight - the jockey knows where!  You will also note the rather lovely heart shaped mark on his forehead - he is called Legend Race, which seems a silly name to me.

That was his first run for my brother and his colleagues, and his first race over fences; he has had a couple of outings over hurdles before this.  Overall, everyone was very happy, and it was certainly a fun day out.  Racing in France - much more egalitarian than the UK, and cheaper too!

I'll finish this week with a couple more flower photos, because it is that time of year when every new bloom is a source of joy.  Firstly there is a flower that isn't a cow slip and isn't a polyanthus and isn't a primrose, but probably a hybrid of all three.

And then there are my tiny anemones that each year I fear will have died off, but which appear again every spring over the space of a few weeks, and contrast nicely with the shoots of peonies that are springing up.

Soon there may be tulips!  Have a good week!

 

And we're back!

Apologies - there really is nothing that can be done when the main provider server is down.

Spring is so close now - the official start date is Thursday 20th March in France anyway - and we have been having more and more tasters of (hopefully) better days to come.  As you drive around the countryside now, the hedges are dominated by the bright, white blossom of blackthorn and wild plums.  It is a sight that always fills me with hope and anticipation for the longer days and better weather to come.  The blossom should also provide a lovely rich feed for the insects that will be starting to get the countryside humming, although up to now, the only place I have heard that buzz has been in a garden with japonica in full bloom.  The plum tree blossom that I have been tracking for the past few weeks is now out - but if you look at the photo, there are no bees to be seen.

Other flowers are also coming out - parts of the Meadow and Garden are turning into cowslip lawns.  I use the term cowslip probably to generously, as I gather there are lots of variants, but the number of these and the colour variations that we will get in due course (red and orange) are a very happy sight for me.  They are so prolific that mowing even paths can be a challenge if one is obsessed with not taking a few out!  Whatever, they are a sign that I need to get out in the garden more.

A sure sign that spring is on its way is the start of the car boot season, or vide grenier as they are called over here - literally empty attic.  Jarzé has the first major one, and it is big!  Despite foul weather with warnings of sleet and snow, between 150 and 200 brave souls turned out to set up their stands from about 6:00am and most would have to wait until about 5:00pm to be able to get away again.  In response to the terror attack years ago in Nice, events like this mean that roads are blocked off with large vans and huge slabs of concrete if held on public roads (fields are a bit different).  I would guess something between 10,000 and 20,000 people will have traipsed the length of Jarzé on Sunday in search of that essential item or elusive bargain.  We bought nothing but saw lots of people we knew.

As well as the outside plants starting to put on a show, my special Mediterranean corner of the Country Kitchen (or cat feeding room) is doing well.  The lemon "tree" is looking healthy and the leaves are a better colour than they were at the start of the winter.  The tiny olive "tree" seems taller and glossier now, while the big plant that we inherited from Francois the Drunk, and split into three, is preparing to flower.  The other two bits are in pots outside, and while they survived last winter, this one doesn't seem to have been as easy on them.  We will see if they revive and then I will bring them indoors in the autumn!

I am very fortunate to have a chum who used to grow flowers for a living and still has a large number of cutting flower plants.  If you pop round to see her for any reason, it is hard to get away without a bunch of something.  My latest gift was a bunch of large and lovely anemones - wow, they are spectacular!

Now that the birds have found the fat balls that I put out for them over the winter, they can't get enough of them.  This is a shame as I stop feeding the birds on the 1st April, as there might be babies hatching and they don't need the somewhat artificial foods in commercial fat balls, or peanuts.  This fuzzy image shows two well fed great tits stuffing their beaks - I would prefer it if they were ripping the pine processionary nests apart, but they are lovely to watch.

So that's it for this week's late epistle, and I hope to be back on Sunday as usual.  Have a good rest of the week!

 

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow

Typepad has had a server issue for a couple of days, but is now working again nicely, so I'll write Sunday's blog tomorrow!

Spring-like activity

This last week, we have been blessed with spring weather in all its glory - sunshine and soft breezes have been the order of the day, although that is changing this weekend.  It has been a wonderful boost to the spirit and to the body to spend time outdoors, to feel the sun on our skin, to shed layers of sweatshirts, thick socks, rubber boots and to sit out and impersonate lizards.  Nature is playing along too, with spring bulbs sprouting and pulling away.  I am most proud of my improvised planters for a couple of packs of Aldi special tulips (other cheap supermarkets are available), and am looking forward to a couple of flowers each at least!

It's official, the last 12 months have been in deficit for sunshine and by quite a lot too - something like 20% less hours of sunshine than average.  While March has tried to make up for it, things are a bit behind.  The glories of Facebook tell me that my grape hyacinths are late, as are my blue anemones!

We decided to spend most of Tuesday working at the Garden in the Country, which meant we were able to do useful things like shift water between storage tanks, do a proper mow on the meadow before anything got too tall, start to rotavate the potato bed, and plant up summer bulbs.  We also sat out for a picnic lunch on the terrace overlooking the Orchard.  Good quality tinned sardines with artisan bread, "raw" butter, tea made with water boiled in the Kelly kettle, using twigs that were getting in our way as fuel - life doesn't really get much better than that!

Friday evening was not spent as it should be, at the pub putting the world to rights, but rather opening up a house for an estate agent to show it to potential purchasers.  They were late and annoying, but given the current weather, it wasn't so bad standing around in the garden, listening to the birds chatting their way to bed.  As the sun set rather dramatically through the trees in the distance, I saw my first bat of the season swooping around.  I hope it found lots of insects to make the evening's display worthwhile!

A couple of weeks ago (when I was feeling more positive about the world), I showed a photo of plum blossom forming.  It has taken its time to mature, and a very few blooms were out today, but most are still just thinking about it.  Very soon now there will be rich pickings for foraging insects as the plum trees start the procession of blossom.  Next it will be peaches, then cherry and pear, with apple and quince bringing up the rear - or that is the theory anyway.  The quince trees are showing very fecund buds, but the leaves come before the flowers so that is probably alright.  Of the various varieties of apple we have, the Granny Smith has the most obvious flower buds, while the Victoria plum is well behind the mirabelle style plums at the Meadow.

The forecast for next week is not so good, so there is a chance I will bring home a trail camera for servicing and clearing the memory card.  On the other hand, if the forecasters are being overly pessimistic, I could be planting onions and even a few spuds, so who knows?  The bloke at lunchtime wouldn't do a forecast further than Monday afternoon - isn't it wonderful how with all the satellites and computing power that goes into weather forecasting, they still can't see further ahead than 48 hours?

And on that note - have a good week!

 

Such variety!

All of a sudden, the weather has changed and the fog has lifted.  Spring flowers are starting to show, and I am particularly pleased with these miniature narcissi, that are flowering in the Fergus Memorial Flowerbed.  I would buy pots with sprouting bulbs from the market at la Flèche a couple of years ago, as pressies for my mother when she was in her nursing home.  The heat of her room brought them on quickly, so she enjoyed watching them develop and bloom, and once the flowers started to fade, I would swap them out for something else and plant the pot of bulbs somewhere in the gardens.  Today I found a clump of hyacinth leaves, but they won't be out for a while yet.

The sunshine inspires us to activity - today I ache, having been taunted by brambles into doing some strimming yesterday.  We got another trailer of compost on Friday and have started to move that down to the potato bed, ready for John to do some rotavating soon.  I have potted up freesia bulbs and small strawberry plants for treats later in the year, and have started to tackle the pile of things I put to one side to wash when the weather meant they could be dried outside.  Our solitary crocus also chose this week to bloom and fade away again.

An evening job is to close up the chicken run.  We don't lock them in a coop, they prefer to roost on a high perch and it is probably safer and certainly more hygienic that they do so, avoiding too much red mite infestation.  Bridie the Freeloading Bantam spends her days with the flock but at night prefers her own company on the roof of the chicken run, even when it rains.  As she is pretty feral, we can't insist on putting her in the run.  When we close up at night, we give them a ration of corn (not maize) to peck at so they sleep with a full crop and have something to mull over during the long evenings (no TV for them!).  Bridie takes her ration on the chicken run roof, so one walks back to the house with a percussive accompaniment as she taps at the grains.

Which brings me nicely to the main topic this week.  Last week I brought in the trail camera that sits at the crossroads of two animal tracks.  I love this location, as the camera is high enough to get a good view and avoid eye contact with the animals. there is next to no human traffic, so it is all about the wildlife, and as time goes by, the activity is more and more natural.  As it is by water, there is also a good variety.  Ignoring the small birds (blackbirds, thrushes, great tits) and rodents (mice and rats), as well as cats, there are 9 reels that follow, each with a different species captured over the past 2 months.

In December, there was this nice footage of a badger - not a species I had noted there before.

There were also pheasants knocking around, having escaped the seasonal dinner table I guess.  This was a male that hadn't been tagged - some have plastic neck collars, indicating they have been released I believe.

In January, the fox was knocking around, presumably looking for a nice, tasty mouse or rat to nibble on.

The coypu was also out and about - I've not seen him taking much interest in plants before, although they are vegetarian I gather.

Of course there is a chance that the coypu was checking out markings left by other species.  You can see here that the same twig got marked by the pine marten that lives around there.

The deer wander through here but can't get out at the far end as they are too tall and not strong enough to force their way through the undergrowth either.  When it is dry I think they pop down into the pond, but not at the moment as it is pretty full.

I was delighted to pick up images of the hare - I had been afraid that the poacher who brazenly mooches through our land had picked them off, so this film was delightful.

Then there are the boar!  This is rare to see, as it is a video in daylight, but count them and know that one or possibly two went through before the video started and there are still two or three to come at the end of the footage!  I find the piglets delightful, with their striped coats, but there really are too many and with up to three litters of up to 10 piglets per year, they could yet take over Western France!

And finally, video sets from this point would not be complete without the mallards.  This seemingly bonded couple have appeared in the last fortnight, and I imagine there will be ducklings in due course, once the male has gone off again! 

The forecast for the coming week is excellent, so I expect to be doing a lot of gardening, and then moaning about how much I ache.  I have a trail camera focussed on another crossroads by ponds which needs to come in for checking and then repositioned, as the point where it is gets far too much human traffic.  I can't promise that for next week I'm afraid.

Have a good week!